Issue 21, 2025

Sensitive particle shape dependence of growth-induced mesoscale nematic structure

Abstract

Directed growth, anisotropic cell shapes, and confinement drive self-organization in multicellular systems. We investigate the influence of particle shape on the distribution and dynamics of nematic microdomains in a minimal in silico model of proliferating, sterically interacting particles, akin to colonies of rod-shaped bacteria. By introducing continuously tuneable tip variations around a common rod shape with spherical caps, we find that subtle changes significantly impact the emergent dynamics, leading to distinct patterns of microdomain formation and stability. Our analysis reveals separate effects of particle shape and aspect ratio, as well as a transition from exponential to scale-free size distributions, which we recapitulate using an effective master equation model. This allows us to relate differences in microdomain size distributions to different physical mechanisms of microdomain breakup. Our results thereby contribute to the characterization of the effective dynamics in growing aggregates at large and intermediate length scales and the microscopic properties that control it. This could be relevant both for biological self-organization and design strategies for future artificial systems.

Graphical abstract: Sensitive particle shape dependence of growth-induced mesoscale nematic structure

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Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Jan 2025
Accepted
24 Apr 2025
First published
28 Apr 2025
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Soft Matter, 2025,21, 4233-4240

Sensitive particle shape dependence of growth-induced mesoscale nematic structure

J. Isensee and P. Bittihn, Soft Matter, 2025, 21, 4233 DOI: 10.1039/D5SM00098J

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